Happy Anniversary
by Mockorange7
Summary: Summary: Yohji goes out every night. This one is no different. No pairing.


_**

* * *

**__**Happy Anniversary**_

_Part 1 of 1_

_By Mockorange7_

* * *

_**PLEASE** do not archive, print, or post anywhere else without permission—please e-mail me and ask first. _

_**Disclaimer:** These characters and this universe are not mine, I didn't create them, and their owners still own them. I'm just borrowing. _

_**Rating & Spoilers:** Rated T for language, and there are probably spoilers. You've been warned. _

_**Summary**: Yohji goes out every night. This one is no different. (No pairing. A psuedo-songfic.)_

_**Author's Rambly Note**: This is just a quick fic inspired by "Closing Time" by Semisonic playing on the radio, which somehow seemed appropriate to Yohji. This is set during the early part of the TV series Kapitel, although I've likely messed with the canon cuz I can't for the life of me quite figure it out (I need a map. Or a flowchart. Or a pie chart. Or maybe just pie. Mmm, pie ...) _

_Sorry about that. This is unbeta'd, so I may replace this later anyway._

_Comments are most welcome. Thanks for reading._

* * *

He drew a gentle finger lightly across the smoothly polished surface of the bar. His glass was empty. 

"You come here often?" The girl slid onto a stool beside him, smiling coyly, flipping long darkhair and pushing a glass across the table.

He leaned forward and took the glass from her, letting his fingers tangle smoothly with hers and feeling his lips curve slowly upwards, sunglasses firmly in place.

* * *

"Long day?" 

He looked up at the clock, which read about a quarter of eleven. He thought it might be slow.

He smiled at the question, not answering in words: all practiced seduction, all art and artifice, and nothing of reality behind the gesture.

"No", he thought softly, in that secret place where his mind shivered and wept, "longer night ahead."

He adjusted his collar to hide the stain of pale pink lipstick, pushed slipping shades more firmly into place, and leaned forward, pasting an attentive expression in the general direction of the lushly blood-coloured mouth now speaking to him.

* * *

It was almost three in the morning, according to the placement of the hands. His shirt was stained, his body weary, and his skin scratched and marked and bruised. He had an early shift, starting in just a few hours. 

He was the eldest, and it was irresponsible of him to be out this late. He knew this.

He was the eldest, and the least worthy of being so.

He didn't give a fuck. The others would assume he was shagging some girl, having the time of his life. He laughed softly. His teammates were transparent, easy to read, too caught up in their own dramas and miseries to try to pierce the image he projected, and too absorbed in their own horrors to bother projecting their own.

Except for Omi. God, the kid scared him shitless. His seemingly guileless blue eyes hid more secrets than his own sleepy green, and he was even better at presenting an image for the world than Yohji could ever be. The kid had been practically trained for it since infancy.

But even so, Yohji was damned good at what he did. The others didn't know him half as well as they thought. He worked hard at making sure they didn't.

It was almost amusing, how opposite expectation they all were.

"We're closing in ten minutes, just so you know."

He nodded silent thanks to the cute foreign bartender for the warning, and stubbed out the cigarette, watching loose ash fall sweetly against the hard wooden surface, wondering if he was now obliged to go back to where he lived. It wasn't home.

Never home.

He'd lost his home years ago, and he knew where he'd found it again, before it had been snatched from him in a hail of gunfire. He didn't think he would ever find another. Didn't ever want to try.

He shuddered. Time to go.

He looked around, and the room around him was empty.

* * *

He found himself trudging along the dark alleyway beside the Koneko. Found himself peering through the darkened window, his key in the lock,before letting himself quietly inside. 

The clock read four twenty-two.

The shop was eerily silent, the plants casting weird and terrible shadows on the walls in the thin pre-dawnlight. He wondered if he should bother getting any sleep, wondered if he could. He wasn't nearly as drunk as he had wanted to be, and wandering in the cool of the early morning hadn't helped. He was almost jarringly awake.

He started climbing the stairs towards his room. He had nothing else left to do. He'd already lived to see the dawn of the new day, in the hollow new year, and it was no different from the one before.

He was still dead.

The silence echoed in his wake.

* * *

The shop in the morning was glaringly, offensively bright, even to his shaded eyes. The screech of morning traffic, the call of Omi as he ran off to school, the soft cadence of Momoe-san's voice, the deep rumble of Aya's and the lighter tones of Ken's as he came in from his morning run were both familiar and contemptuous to his ears and mind. 

The shop was full of girls, young and old and in-between, and he smiled and flattered and tried not to notice how some had hair worn just like hers, some were the same height, some had voices that ...

"Rough night, Yohji?" Ken paused near him, ostensibly to wipe his feet before exiting towards the back rooms, his voice soft and seeming-concerned.

"Yohji didn't get back until after four thirty," Aya's suddenly nearby voice held stark disapproval, although like Ken, his voice was low enough, on the far side of the shop, that Momoe-san shouldn't hear.

"Jealous, kitten?" hissed Yohji nastily, annoyance he didn't bother to conceal lacing the question, as he wondered if Momoe-san was just pretending to be oblivious to their surreptitious conversation and just how Aya knew exactly what time he'd gotten home, or if it had been a lucky guess.

"What if we got a mission tonight? What would you do then?"

"I'll do what I always do, Aya. I'll be ready." Yohji tried to hide the note of exhaustion, and the hint of hurt, masking these behind the anger he let cloak the words he flung back at the redhead. He would kill as easily as he always had. He was good at death.

"Omi says we won't have," said Ken quietly, stepping between them, chocolate eyes watching him closely, and Yohji was relieved. Yohji almost smiled at Ken, letting his guard slip and the gratitude show, but Ken had already turned away to Aya, his voice reprimanding. "Stop baiting him, Aya." What was going on? Aya looked almost ... apologetic?

"Yohji ... " said Aya slowly, almost gently, then, like he was trying, like ...

Ken cut Aya off, and Yohji's blood almost froze at Ken's words.

"Omi told us."

"Omi told you? What are you babbling about there, Kenken?" His voice was sharp and a little too high for safety. They couldn't possibly know. They couldn't.

"He told us. We're sorry, Yohji. If there's ... anything ..." Ken's voice trailed off, or he couldn't hear it anymore, because sound and light and everything was rushing past, rushing forward, and ...

Aya's strong hand was on his arm, rough and hard, holding him firmly upright, and he blinked, once, twice, as the room straightened and stilled.

Momoe-san, he noticed absently, was no longer in her chair, and the light in the room seemed duller, somehow, the place strangely quiet and drained of demanding customers. Empty, except for him, and his two waiting teammates, blurred and darkened figures against the shadowed bright.

"Don't." He bit the word out, turning on his heel and pushing past the door and walking out, uncaring of where. He couldn't look at them. "Don't say it."

Saying her name would make it real. Saying her name would mean ...

He kept walking, and walking away.

* * *

_If you have comments, negative or positive, I'd be more than grateful to hear them. You can also e-mail me at __mockorange7 at yahoo.ca._


End file.
